Bell's News

B1 Beer: Get to know Larry’s Latest Sour Ale

This post is part of an occasional series looking at the beers we develop at our original brewery, or B1.

Tasting notes: Dry hopped, kettle sour. Bright, citrus-like tartness

Continuing our tradition of innovation and experimentation, we’ve released another beer in our Larry’s Latest series.

With Larry’s Latest Sour, we’re experimenting with kettle souring.

Kettle souring is a relatively new process to get tartness in beer that is not overwhelming or intense, but just enough.

For Larry’s Latest Sour, we add three types of lactobacillus souring bacteria, the same stuff that makes cheese, kimchi, sauerkraut and other probiotic products to the wort. We kept it warm between 12 and 48 hours to get the desired tartness in a shorter period of time.

Once the wort is as sour as we want it, we boil it, add hops and introduce our house ale yeast to ferment like most of our other beers.

This is different than how we brew Oarsman,

Larry’s Latest Sour is also dry hopped with five different American varietals, including Loral, Galaxy, and Citra.

This is the latest in a series that includes other beer styles including Belgian ale, IPA, Double IPA, lager, pale ale and black ale.